Feel at Ease
by TheEverlastingFangirl
Summary: Eren has been moving around for a long time and it has been proven to become too much to bear. Even though his boyfriend and family are a phone call away. He doesn't know how long he can handle being alone until he breaks. Based off Ease by Troye Sivan. (Trigger warning)


**Before reading this please note that this is depressing. It's based off of the song 'Ease' by Troye Sivan. And if it you think there is a chance it could be triggering please do not read this. It contains very depressing themes and different forms of mental illnesses. Thank you.**

 _I'm down to my skin and bone_

 _And my mommy, she can't put down the phone and stop asking how I'm doing all alone  
Alone._

Eren stared in the mirror. His tan skin was bare and naked in front of the long mirror. His body was covered in deep purple bruises like they were painted over his skin. He sighed deeply. His ribs were prominent and looked like they were trying to break through the skin. His hipbones jutted out and his collarbone was sharp and reaching through his skin like a hand.

It seemed like the mirror was more capable of causing the 19-year-old excruciating pain through his chest. Even better so than the people around him, jeering.

His phone began vibrating on his countertop. Right next to the gleaming blade of the razor. Eren gulped and picked up the silver device with shaking hands. The word Mom appeared at the screen, still buzzing happily.

Eren inhaled a breath, preparing himself for what was to come. He opened his glassed green eyes and answered, pressing the cold device to his ear. "Mom, you finished calling me ten minutes ago. What's wrong now?" He laughed but immediately flinched at how joyful it was. How unrealistic it was. He ignored it for his mother's sake and allowed the sound to tumble off his tongue.

The woman laughed as well, a genuine sound that was dripping with happiness and concern. Concern. Eren inhaled a shaky breath. The woman spoke with a smooth voice. "I'm sorry, Eren, my poor little baby." Her voice transformed into a loving one that seemed unable to pronounce r's and l's. Eren managed to crack a small smile on his chapped pink lips. His breath hitched in his throat as he looked back at the mirror.

"I'm just worried, that's all. I wanted to know if you were doing well alone. You haven't been anywhere too far on your own without myself or Mikasa or Armin. Never mind without Levi – who I still need to meet, young man." She let out another chuckle as her voice grew more serious. Eren paused before realising she was playing with him. He let out an exasperated sound, attempting to hide it as a laugh.

His mother's voice grew serious. "But are you okay? Are you eating enough? Is everyone kind?" She began rambling with her many concerns. Eren cut her off with a small chuckle. "I'm fine, mom. I've got to go now anyway. I'll talk soon. Take care." "Love you." He put down the phone and saw his face was blotchy and red. He furiously wiped away the tears, making poor attempts at trying to forget.

 _The truth is the stars are falling, ma.  
And the wolves are out, ca-calling ma.  
And home has never felt this far. _

Eren allowed a sob to wrack his frail body, his elbows resting on the surface of the cold marble. Another ugly sob escaped his lips. Everything hurt so badly. It was like someone holding a clean pointed dagger and slicing it through his chest. Except, he never died, the pain just became more intense and the blood continued to drip down his cold skin like crimson paint on a torn canvas.

He collapsed on the floor, banging his head hard against a cold sheet of granite. His head began to swim, dark spots dancing over his vision. The pain clouded at the top of his head. It was like every star in his small universe was beginning to fall.

A chorus of laughter echoed somewhere outside the apartment. Fists thumped against the door. "Oi, Gayger. Tone it down, will 'ya? Your pathetic crying is giving us a headache!" They jeered loudly. Eren swallowed a sob and opened his rich green eyes, red with tears and aching from crying. Gold flecks surrounded the iris as he stared strongly at the flickering light above him. 'The wolves are calling, ma.' He wished he could say. But he never had the nerve to.

He gritted his teeth, yanking on fistfuls of muddy brown hair. A scream coming out muffled through his clenched teeth. The anger was quickly replaced by sorrow. Home had never felt so far out of reach.

 _But all this driving, is driving me crazy  
And all this moving is proving to get the best of me  
And I've been trying to hide it  
but lately  
Every time I think I'm better pickin' my head up getting nowhere_

Eren yanked on a crisp black shirt, ignoring the blood from his upper arms beginning to form dark splotches over the sleeves. He grabbed his keys, the cold metal digging into his skin. Before he walked out the door, slamming it hard behind him and descending down the hallway, stairs creaking under his low weight.

He ignored the cries of Braun shouting different interpretations of his name and submerged himself with the coldness of the night. He shivered but didn't pay attention to his shaking form. He retreated to his glossy black Astra, hiding in the corner of the parking lot. A few dents littered the side of it but apart from that, it was well intact.

He jumped into the driver's seat and slammed the door, hard. He quickly turned the keys in the lock and the engine spluttered into life. The feeling of power surged through Eren's fingertips as he turned the wheel out of the parking lot and away from the tall and depressing hotel. A few of the words on the sign flashing purple then an odd fuchsia colour, almost as if they were indicating how shattered the life of the place was. Which they pretty much were.

Eren moved onto the quiet road with nothing and no one else. He drove through a tunnel of pitch black surroundings. His only light being the headlights shining onto the cracked tar. Eren clenched his teeth tightly, holding one hand to his head. It was like someone was slamming a fist into his temple. The driving was driving him crazy at this point.

Eren drove onwards.

He wound down the window, allowing the screaming silence to enter his ears along with a fresh cold wind that bit at his golden skin. He murmured a few words. "The therapist always said admitting the problem helped." He stuck his head out of the window and screamed. It felt as though someone was tearing his vocal chords out. His throat was being shredded.

After a few long seconds of pure screaming, Eren tucked his head back into the safety of the car. His eyes widened as he realised the issue. The traveling he had always been dreaming to do. The moving and the constant shifts had bored him to death and cornered him back into the tight box with only depression, loneliness and hatred to accompany him. The moving had proven to help nothing.

Eren turned the car around, deciding it was time to head back to the classic American hotel. The one with the fraying blue curtains. With the groaning shower. And the bed with brown stains that stunk of unknown habitats that Eren preferred to stay unknown.

He had been trying to hide the problem with other problems. It was like covering the devil with a mask. Tucked away in the corner of his brain, willing him on. It didn't make the devil any better, it just distracted him with something he thought was different. It never was. Eren's mind seemed to implode with the shock of everything he had denied in the past month with heavy lies.

He realised. Every time that he thought he was finally introducing happiness back into his life, ready to have the feeling wash over in him alongside a flurry of emotions, he wasn't. He picked his head up and looked around frantically.

He was getting nowhere.

 _Take me back to the basics and the simple life  
Tell me all of the things that make you feel at ease  
Your touch, my comfort and my lullaby  
Holdin' on tight and sleepin' at night_

Eren lay on the stiff mattress beneath him, his arms were holding his head in an awkward position. The tears that had been pasted over his face had dried and no longer fell. Reiner and his small group of friends had grown bored of jeering words painted in pain at him. They all passed him without a second glance. It was like he was a ghost. People brushed past him but continued to speak and laugh. He walked straight into people and apologised yet they just brushed their sleeves and picked themselves up.

The loneliness was like a bullet hole in his chest, and someone was tearing it apart yet the blood never spurted out.

He fought against letting out a cry of pain as he remembered his simple life at home. It was so many years ago.

He would smile with the biggest grin that stretched across his face. He walked around in a warm blanket of sunshine and always had another blanket spare. He would rest his head on Levi's firm lean shoulder and play with his ebony coloured hair. Then he would melt into his embrace and they would share a new memory.

It was a basic, simple life. Yet it was everything Eren could ask for. But they were distant memories. Like words written on paper that the wind had stolen ever so kindly. Still seen, yet you could never retrieve them.

A sigh ran past Eren's pink lips. He inhaled a deep breath through his nose and his eyelids fluttered close. His body was pumping through adrenaline and it ran through his body on its own accord. The loneliness spiked his heart again, like a needle sliding through the organ and back out. It left a worrying amount of damage. _His body was burning_. He felt the fire lick at his skin. But when he opened his eyes, the room remained dull and grey.

He stopped. And remembered what he had said all those years ago to Levi.  
 _'Tell me all of the things that make you feel at ease.'_  
Eren opened his rich gleaming eyes and sat up abruptly. The sudden movement let out a dulling ache in his right elbow but he barely felt it. He remembered Levi skimming his fingertips over Eren's bare chest. Eren pressed to fingers to his chest feeling the clothed material, nothing was there yet he felt the phantom of Levi stroking his body with a smooth touch that screamed love and care.

Eren murmured the words again, his eyes remaining wide and staring at a large brown stain blossoming on the wall. He let out a quick breath of air from between his lips. He listened to his boyfriend's voice in his mind, how it never wavered and always worked beautifully. He sounded like an angel, his voice flowed like honey. Smooth. He always sang to Eren when he was on edge.

Eren listened to those things in his head. He didn't know what it was and he didn't care if his mind was cracking into segments and trying to tell him he was _insane_. He listened. He cared about how he finally felt at ease.

 _Now I'm down to my skin and bones  
And my baby listens to me on the phone  
But I can't help feeling like I'm all alone, alone_

Eren pressed his tightly closed fist that grasped the metal key, cold burning his hands, to his forehead. The key was on a chain that fell down to his chest but the metal always seemed to burn away his skin with repressed nightmares and decrease of heat.

"Eren, please." There was that voice again. The one that seemed to be smothered in gold and always purred his name with love. In this case, worry. Eren felt another fat tear roll down his cheek. "Eren?" Levi spoke again. "Eren, I want to be there right now. I want to sleep next to you and comfort you but all I have is this damn phone that can reach you even when you're halfway across the world from me."

Eren managed to let a small laugh out of his compressed lips. Levi managed a small chuckle too. "See? I hate it when you're sad, Eren. It shatters me." Eren let a small quivering breath to leave his lips. "Levi?" His boyfriend hummed in response, the sound buzzing slightly due to the distance and effect of the phone.

"I'm lonely. I feel like my life is water and there was a time it was ice – solid and pure. Except now, it's melting and slipping through my fingers and I seem unable to grasp it properly. Levi," an ugly sob. "I want to go home." He listened to Levi take a sharp intake of air.

"Eren Jaeger. I want you to know that although you're halfway across the world, I am there holding you. I love you so much, everyone does. And you never have to carry on, your home is always a flight away. Your life is solid ice, you just haven't been able to grasp it in your hands. You just haven't been given the chance to hold it and look at it again. You are not broken. You are not alone. You are always home with me."

Eren felt a smile pull at the corners of his lips despite the sadness buried in his chest. Levi seemed to cure him. Yet, he couldn't help but feel a wallowing loneliness in his chest. Unaccountable of what he had told his boyfriend.

 _All alone. Forever alone._

Eren lay on the bathroom tiles. The blade full of such evil and power glinted in his hand, mocking him. He watched as a bead of blood travelled down his arm. The blood seeped from the cut in his wrist.

He had told his family he was fine. That he could deal with whatever was shot his way. Yet it seemed the bows only shot poisoned arrows painted and polished in pain and sadness. But it was over.

 _I've been lyin' way too long. I don't need it anymore. Don't you worry about me. I'll be fine if I can breathe._

Eren squeezed his eyes shut. His breath was coming out rapid and uneven. The breath tore from his throat which was begin to sear with pain. The invisible fingers wrapped around his throat tightened and he made a small squeak.

 _He wasn't going to be fine if he couldn't breathe. Which he couldn't._

The small cramped corner in the bathroom behind the tall white cabinet hid his shaking figure. He had been there nearly an hour; the matted blood was drying on his arm and more seeped through from other cuts on his arms. The once crisp white bandages became oily and a reddish brown.

The smell of metal draped the room like a curtain. A smell of copper strong that it assisted in the unseen choking of the young man.

Eren felt a sob escape his lips.

 _I've been hidin' way too long. Taking **** for how I'm wrong. How I'm wrong. Always wrong._

He thought they cared. Maybe they had. Maybe they hadn't. But Eren was going for the latter. He no longer cared.

He picked up his small cold phone and scrolled through his contacts, trying to hum to himself to sooth his shaking figure. The sound came out uneven.

"Hello? Eren? What's wrong, it's the middle of the night." Levi spoke, groggily. He became less grumpy when he heard the quiet shaky hums of the voice on the line.

He sat up in his bed. He furiously wiped at his grey eyes and held the phone to his ear, hand becoming clammy with nerves. Why was Eren crying? He felt a lump form in the back of his throat. He couldn't bear to witness his boyfriend like this and be unable to do anything.

"Eren? Please, answer. I'm worried."

Nothing except the uneven hums of his song.

"Eren!" Levi spoke, his voice raising. But he couldn't help it, he was scared stiff.

Levi fell onto the mattress, feeling a fat tear sprout at the corner of his eye. He sang quietly.

 _"_ _Please tell me. Say anything. Anything hurts less the quiet."_

The humming stopped. Levi heard the sharp intake of a breath before the singing continued. Eren didn't know it but his voice was capable of being deep and masculine but angelic all at once.

 _"_ _But all this drivin' is drivin' me crazy. And all this moving is proving to get the best of me and I've been trying to hide it but lately, every time I think I'm better, pickin' my head up getting nowhere."_

Levi's eyes widened.

"Eren- "

"I don't think I'm okay, Levi. I want to go back to a basic simple life. I want you to come here and comfort me. I've been lying for far too long. I don't need it anymore. Don't worry. Just, Levi- "

Levi interrupted him. "Tell me all of the things that make you feel at _ease_."

 **right. Now, this was a little depressing. Let me explain. Troye Sivan is one of the only people I know that make songs so meaningful to myself (this is deep) and I thought, hey, why not try doing this through a genuine story. To be honest, this is my favourite song of his; so why not. Please let me know how you feel about this and maybe more are coming. Who knows? Thanks for reading.**


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